his invention of a non-popping champagne cork, and who, adoring the
girl, had hastened the very day the news of the smash had spread
through the country, like fire on a windy day, to lay his portly self
and all that thereunto adhered at her beautiful feet. The disgust of
her relatives upon her want of common sense was outspoken; for having
overstocked their respective quivers with commonplace female arrows,
they quite naturally looked with dismay upon an almost beautiful and
_quite_ penniless and homeless girl about whom, _after_ having read the
will they referred to as "poor Jill, for whom I _suppose_ we _must_ do
_something_ don't you know?" with a quavering inflection at the end of
the phrase.

But Jill did not stop on refusing the eligible owner of an unmortgaged
estate. No! she set out to look for work off her own bat, and actually
found it in that occupation which, far less paid than more, opens up a
perfect vista of possible adventures under the guise of a travelling
companion.

She spoke French, German, and Italian like natives, which was all to
the good. She danced like a Vernon Castle, knew almost as much about
fencing as a Saviolo, shot like a George V., and rode like a cowboy,
all of which qualifications she erased from her list on the termination
of the freezing half-hour of her first interview with her first
would-be employer, who, until the enumeration of the above sporting
qualifications, had seemed desirous of taking her along with a
bronchitic pug to winter in Bath.

Since then she had done Europe and Africa pretty well with never the
suspicion of an adventure, and, when you meet her on the station of
Ismailiah, where you change for Port Said, she was returning from